The Crying Indian and Mustang Jeans both utilize Indigenous culture to portray the devastating contrast between nature and modern society. The Crying Indian presents a Native American man rowing across a river. Upon arrival at the polluted shore, the man walks across trash-filled land to fully face the sources of such filth: people. Garbage is thrown out of a moving vehicle and lands on the Native man, prompting him to glance across the busy freeway and subsequently shed a tear at the vile scene. Similarly, Mustang Jeans shows human destruction through a modern man’s glimpses of a Native American man, telling a story about a freer world in the past. Flashbacks of wild horses galloping happily across the streets, but are last pictured tied up…show more content… However, each commercial accentuates stereotypes in different, equally harmful ways. The Crying Indian uses a white actor to visualize a Native man, clothed in traditional regalia. This misplacement of culture is appropriating as it does not reflect the authentic Indigenous experience, but rather how the experience is viewed by those not a part of it. In contrast, Mustang Jeans does use a Native American actor who perfectly embodies the exaggerated features of an Indigenous man: sullen cheeks, a flat mouth, and slanted eyes encompassed by a large nose. The stereotypical image has a history of being used to portray Native people in the past, reminded by media figures such as the Indians in the classic Disney movie, Peter Pan. The act of generalizing any culture is offensive and only forces people into an inaccurate category of who they are and should be. While the message of being more environmentally conscious is a positive notion, conveying it using Indigenous stereotypes takes away from its purpose. The Crying Indian concludes with the Native man staring helplessly into the camera, shedding a
